The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 178

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 178. Assault (4)
Where had that trembling figure gone, hunched like a frightened child?
Jackal’s eyes narrowed as he watched Elisha leisurely smoking a cigarette.
“Heh….”
What he had triggered was the trauma carved deep within her psyche.
No matter how exceptional one’s mental fortitude, it should be impossible to escape so easily.
‘She overcame it with just a few words?’
With just a few words from a Candidate under his tutelage, no less?
‘No.’
That couldn’t be right.
“Tsk tsk. Playing pretend, are we?”
Jackal dragged a sharp dagger across his palm.
He let the gushing blood drip onto the tattoos inscribed across his body.
Uuuuuung!
The pattern flickered with an ominous light.
“Buooooooo!”
The flesh-formed demon beast shrieked and writhed in agony.
Along with it, Elisha’s parents—constructed from flesh—screamed in desperation.
“Ah, ahhh. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.”
“Help us… help, please… Elisha….”
“….”
Elisha’s expression hardened at the wailing of her parents.
She closed her eyes gently, then spread both arms wide.
Shwooooosh!
Dozens of strands of webbing erupted from her fingertips.
Elisha gazed at her parents with sorrowful eyes and took a long stride forward.
“Mother, Father… no… Mom, Dad.”
Not the cold and cruel spider with those terrible eyes.
She speaks with the face of the mischievous girl who loved playing with the neighborhood children.
“Thank you.”
Tears streamed down Elisha’s cheeks.
Whoosh.
After taking a deep drag from the cigarette, she flicks the half-smoked stick away with her hand.
The innocent girl’s expression vanishes, and her violet eyes gleam with savage ferocity.
“So now, I’ll put you at ease.”
Boom!
She launches forward with a powerful push of her legs.
“Buooooooo!”
Shwooooosh!
Tentacles erupted from the flesh-formed demon beast’s body, lashing out at her.
“Haah!”
I sweep my arms wide in a graceful arc, as though dancing.
Gossamer threads extend in all directions.
The tangled web spreads through the air in a perfect net formation.
The flesh beast’s tentacles snag upon the silken strands and halt.
Viscous blood cascades like a waterfall from the tentacles bound by the razor-sharp threads.
“Buoooooh!”
The flesh beast writhes and shrieks in agony.
Elisha raises one arm high, extending her hand toward the ceiling.
Whoooosh!
As the web erupts forth, my body soars upward into the air.
A height so tremendous that even the colossal flesh beast—spanning dozens of meters—appears as nothing more than a toy.
Elisha crosses her outstretched arms in an X formation.
“Bind it.”
Like a spider weaving its web to ensnare prey.
Dozens, hundreds of silver threads intertwine through the void, coiling around the flesh beast’s body.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Jackal roars and attempts to press his bleeding palm against the pattern.
“You really have no sense of timing, do you? In situations like this, you’re supposed to watch and wait, you fool.”
Dale suddenly appears at his side.
Seizing Jackal by the throat, Dale drives a brutal kick into his abdomen.
“Gack…!”
Though Jackal is a formidable Demon Human known as the Archbishop of Beasts, his true strength lies in commanding his legions of demonic beasts—his personal combat prowess is far from exceptional.
Jackal tumbles across the ground from the impact.
Dale pays him no further attention, his gaze fixed entirely on Elisha as she battles the flesh beast.
“Buoooooh!”
The flesh beast writhes within its silken bonds, thrashing with all its might.
The tremendous force erupting from its massive frame snaps the threads asunder.
“As expected—brute strength befitting such a frame.”
Elisha gazes down upon the flesh beast, her eyes gleaming with cold calculation.
“But.”
Whoooosh!
More web erupts forth once more.
The threads ensnare the flesh beast faster than they can be torn asunder.
“Bind it. Bind it. Bind it.”
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands.
An immeasurable torrent of threads cascades like a tidal wave, coiling around the flesh beast’s body.
Tangling, interweaving, layering upon one another.
Binding the flesh beast in an inescapable quagmire.
“Grrk!”
Had I drawn upon my mana beyond its limits?
Crimson blood spilled from Elisha’s lips in a torrent.
My stigma-marked chest screamed as though pierced by a blade.
Every meridian in my body shrieked on the verge of rupture.
And yet.
“Bind it.”
I did not stop.
I drew my mana beyond the threshold, wringing every ounce from my stigma.
I refused to think of retreat.
No complacent mindset could slay such a horrific demon beast.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
Breath caught in my throat.
As the number of web-like strands ensnaring the flesh beast’s body multiplied, my face drained of all color.
It was agonizing. Unbearable.
I wanted nothing more than to collapse and rest.
Surely Dale, already so far beyond me in strength, would finish the flesh beast without my aid?
A seductive whisper bloomed in my mind.
It was not without merit.
Dale possessed power that dwarfed my own by a considerable margin.
With the beast bound so thoroughly in webbing, reducing it to ash would be trivial for him.
“El… i… sha…”
“Save… me… please…”
I knew the truth.
That these were not my real parents.
Merely puppets of flesh, crafted to exploit my deepest trauma.
But.
Even so.
“The end must come by my own hand.”
I recalled that day.
The day my life was trampled beneath a heel.
Roaring flames, billowing smoke, screams that tore the very air asunder.
That nightmare.
That despair.
By my own hand.
“Bind it.”
And.
“Crush it.”
The webbing that bound the flesh beast contracted with violent speed.
Crack, crack-crack! Squelch!
The sound of flesh compressing and deforming.
A bone-chilling shriek that threatened to tear eardrums asunder reverberated throughout the Abyss.
“Ah, ugh.”
Blood cascaded from my nose.
Every meridian in my body screamed in agony from the mana manipulation that had exceeded its limits.
And yet.
“Hgh.”
It was writhing in torment.
It was thrashing about.
The nightmare that had trampled everything about her.
The despair that had never ended.
It died, shrieking miserably.
“El, li….”
“My… beloved… daughter….”
Crunch, crunch, crunch!
The parents’ forms were crushed and compressed between the contracting spider web.
And then.
Boom!
The massive body of the flesh-beast demon crashed to the ground.
“…Ah.”
Elisha’s body, which had been suspended high in the air, plummeted like a kite with its string severed.
Catch.
The warm embrace that enveloped her body.
“Are you alright?”
“…Dale….”
No matter how much they were merely counterfeits fashioned from flesh.
A happiness that seemed unfit for a child who had just slain their own parents with their own hands flooded my chest.
Dale gently laid Elisha on the ground and stroked her hair.
“Rest now. I will handle Jackal.”
“…Thank… you.”
Elisha nodded with difficulty and offered a faint smile.
She crawled weakly across the ground and leaned her back against a nearby rock.
She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep right there, but she could not.
Jackal—the most important one—was still very much alive, his eyes wide open.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it…!”
Jackal stared at the corpse of the flesh-beast demon, now so mangled it was unrecognizable, and spat out harsh curses.
Sizzzzzzz!
Smoke rose as the tattoos inscribed upon his body gradually faded away.
“It seems you’ve lost quite a few of your subordinate demons?”
I gazed at Jackal as his tattoos vanished, a smirk playing at the corners of my lips.
Jackal ground his teeth and shuffled backward, step by step.
“Why, are you planning to run away?”
“Tch….”
I approached Jackal with an unhurried gait.
Then.
“These pathetic wretches…!”
Jackal cried out as if seized by a fit, stamping his feet roughly against the ground.
Ominous light erupted from the few remaining tattoos on his body, and several demonic beasts emerged from the rifts.
The demonic beasts that appeared from the rifts had nine eyes each.
They were powerful enough that even active heroes would need to form a Party to face them, but before me—one who had already swept away a horde of Ten-Eyed Demon Beasts—they were nothing more than street mongrels.
“It seems your reserves have finally run dry.”
“Kill him! Kill that bastard!”
The demonic beasts lunged forward at Jackal’s command.
Whoosh!
I sliced through the charging demonic beasts one by one with my sword wreathed in ashen flames, all while keeping watch on Jackal’s movements.
“Tch!”
The moment the horde of beasts rushed toward me, Jackal spun around and fled.
I clicked my tongue and watched his retreating back disappear into the distance.
“Is this really all you could come up with?”
Using the demonic beasts as bait to escape in the chaos.
It was a pathetic display unworthy of the title Archbishop.
Step, step.
I cut down the swarming beasts one by one and pursued Jackal.
Jackal, who had been fleeing in panic, suddenly came to an abrupt halt.
“Heh.”
Standing motionless, Jackal’s lips curled upward in a sinister smile.
He turned to face me, his eyes gleaming with delight.
“You’ve fallen right into my trap.”
“…What?”
“Heh, hehehehehehe!!!”
Jackal burst into raucous laughter, clutching his sides.
“Fool… did you truly believe I fled in fear before a wretch like you?”
Jackal’s shoulders shook with mirth as he regarded me.
As if all the pathetic displays he had shown thus far were merely an act, he gazed at me with a composed smile, and I narrowed my eyes.
‘What is this?’
Could there be hidden cards he hasn’t yet revealed?
Since I had never directly fought Jackal in my previous life, I didn’t know exactly what forces he possessed.
‘Are there other demonic beasts besides the flesh-mass variety?’
If so, the situation had become rather troublesome.
My own battle was not the issue, but the aftermath of combat could sweep up Elisha in its wake.
“….”
I stopped in my tracks, glaring at Jackal, when he opened his mouth with a leisurely expression.
“Do you know what dwells in this ‘Abyss’?”
“…What dwells here?”
“Tsk tsk tsk! Of course you wouldn’t know! This place is a demon realm where no one has set foot for the past five hundred years!”
Jackal laughed, shrugging his shoulders.
“Listen well, boy. In this place dwells… the ‘Tyrant’.”
“…The Tyrant?”
“The ruler of Abyss Layer 3. The incarnation of death. The King of Demon Beasts… the titles by which he is called are countless.”
Jackal continued speaking.
“I’ll tell you why I’ve descended here, using the demon beast legion I’ve spent my entire life taming as bait.”
Jackal’s mouth twisted into a grin wide enough to tear, his arms spreading broadly.
“Hahahaha! Witness! Revere! This moment when the King of Demon Beasts returns!”
An explosive surge of demonic energy erupted from his body, engulfing the surroundings.
“Come forth! Tyrant of the Abyss, Behemoth!”
With a cry filled with madness.
Jackal took a step, crossing the ‘line’ and setting his foot forward.
And then.
“….”
“….”
A profound silence descended.
“…Huh?”
Jackal’s head swiveled about in confusion.
He tapped the ground with the foot he’d planted in Behemoth’s domain, his eyes narrowing.
“What?”
Why isn’t he coming?

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————